Thursday, February 17, 2011

The other thing that's bugging me today is I'm not sure what the etiquette is regarding a memorial service for a co-worker. The question is, can I get away with skipping it? I realize this is more than a bit selfish of me, and he was a nice guy, and it's certainly sad - he was only in his 50s - but I barely knew him and I don't know his family one tiny bit.

If I had a specific, time-sensitive prior engagement I'd skip it without a second thought, but I don't, I just have stuff I'd rather do: get through a little of that work I alluded to in my last post, and go to the gym here at work when I finish for today. I don't want to do either of those tomorrow, the very last minute.

I'm afraid of telling someone I can't make it for vague reasons, only to bump into them at the gym and have them think that I care about ... except, wait a second, who would know about the memorial service at the gym? Obviously, anyone who would see me wouldn't care about it. And anyways, I had the idea to write about this earlier but some people had said in e-mails that they'd be leaving by now or earlier, but own office and immediate co-workers are still here, so clearly, few people close to me are going, if anyone.

Well, I'm glad I wrote this to figure that out, at least.
Not having a good day today. There are two reasons for this.

First of all, today is one of those "procrastination catches up to me" days. I procrastinate a fair amount, but it usually doesn't cause many problems. Normally I let my more low-key projects at work slide until a deadline approaches or I have really nothing else at all going on, and that works fine because it's very unlikely that something will come up without warning. Normally I take care of personal business (doctor's appointments, paying bills, shopping for out-of-the-way stuff, etc.) on a Monday every other week that I take off, and that works fine because that's what the regular day off (RDO) is for, most people at my office do something similar on whichever day of the week they prefer, and it's scheduled well in advance. Normally I let don't plan outings and get-togethers with family and friends in much detail or that far in advance, and that works fine because I don't do so very often and when I do, we all have cell phones.

Normally, normally, normally. At the moment, however, I'm getting ready to go on vacation in Paris with T. We leave Saturday. I have to get substitutes ready to help with my projects at work, and it was like cramming for an exam in college simply to figure out what would be needed from them. I've had problems with a flexible spending account that my employer supposedly set up for me, and I haven't had an RDO recently because of my upcoming vacation. I've been meaning to sort it out during business hours, but I haven't got around to it yet. And an aunt and cousin of mine are going to be in Paris at the same time we are and it would be cool to meet up with them, and planning that out has been problematic.